


Heading Into Their Future

by DesertVixen



Category: Westing Game - Ellen Raskin
Genre: After the Westing Game, Celebrations, Gen, Mid-Canon, Missing Scene, Sam Westing plays Julian R. Eastman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 16:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16200917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: Three years after the Westing Game ends, Angela and Turtle Wexler are ready for the next step in their lives...





	Heading Into Their Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gwenfrankenstien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwenfrankenstien/gifts).



Saturday afternoons were Turtle’s favorite days, spent in Sandy’s library. Julian R. Eastman was his identity now, but to Turtle he would always be Sandy. 

They played chess, and he taught her everything he had learned about business. He even gave her assignments, practical exercises that not only earned experience but also had more tangible rewards. He had been putting her winning aside, preparing a little surprise for her.

Sometimes they talked about the Westing Game. Turtle might have won the game, but there was still so much that she didn’t understand about it. She was aware that some of it had been nudges, some of it had been luck, but at the same time, she’d played the game with a seriousness that Sam Westing could appreciate

Talking about the game was always a reward – Turtle had to earn it by showing that she was paying attention to his lessons.

Today was one of those days. The game had been over for three years, and she was pushing through high school, impatient to be done with what she saw as the boring parts. 

“How did you pick the pairs?” Turtle asked.

“Would you believe me if I said I picked them out of a hat?” Sandy winked at her.

“Not in the slightest.” She had learned enough about her mentor to know that he had left nothing to chance when it came to the game. Of course, chance had managed to creep into the game anyway.

“You’re right, mostly. Some pairs were assembled from leftover pieces. I figured your mother and Jimmy Hoo would get along well, and pairing your father and Sunny seemed logical.”  
Grace Wexler and Jimmy Hoo had been a good team – still were, Turtle reflected. Her mother’s energy was going to her business, instead of being solely focused on Angela and Turtle, which made everyone happy. Turtle and Angela most of all.

“As much as I would have loved to pair you up with Josie-Jo Ford, I had to keep her with me to make sure she couldn’t spoil the game,” Sandy continued. “That, and I wanted to give you a partner who could help you.”

His plan had worked, although she had figured it out at the end. He’d seen it dawning in her eyes, heard it in her impassioned defense of Crow, had known he had to move to the next stage of his plan.

Josie-Jo would have recognized the young girl’s talents, but would she have been able to heal her hurts? The man who had been Sam Westing had recognized something of himself in the thirteen-year-old who kicked shins, had wanted to give her the support he’d never received. The support he didn’t think Turtle ever received. Turtle lived in Angela’s golden shadow, and would always come off as second-best in that light. Flora Baumbach, on the other hand, was one of those people who needed someone to take care of, someone to mother. Their relationship had been one of the genuinely good things that had come out of the game.

Turtle smiled. Baba might not understand the ins and outs of Turtle’s accomplishments but she cared about her – and she would care just as much if Turtle wasn’t a successful over-achiever. 

“Doug and Theo seemed like a solid pair as well,” Sandy reflected. He’d been impressed by Theo, who had made some strides towards a possible answer, but he had refused to say the name once he had realized what the stakes were, even to win money he could definitely use. It had been a bittersweet moment – George Theodorakis had clearly raised his son to be a man of integrity. 

Theo could have even been his own grandson. 

Violet could have still been alive, still have been happy.

“I counted on Otis Amber to keep Crow in the game, so they had to be together,” Sandy continued, forcing himself not to dwell on things that might have been. He had thought watching Crow squirm would be entertaining, satisfying. Instead, she had claimed it herself before she could be denounced, had spared the group the burden of guilt. Of course, he had planned for some other circumstances to play out differently, but he’d made a stupid error.

“I guess my biggest question would be why you put Sydelle and Angela together,” Turtle mused aloud. 

Sydelle, of course, had been his stupid error. He had planned to pair Angela Wexler with Sybil Pulaski, the outspoken young woman who had been close to Berthe Erica Crow back when, who’d known Sam Westing when he was Windy Windkloppel, scrabbling for success. He had anticipated that she would put extra pressure on Crow, having her once-dear friend paired with someone who resembled her dead daughter. Angela had been very much like Violet, even more than he had initially realized, just as trapped by her outwardly-good circumstances. At least Angela had chosen to act out, to blow things up, rather than drowning herself. 

That was one of the other genuinely good results of his game. Angela had gained the strength to stand on her own feet. She had broken off her engagement to Denton Deere and gone back to school, to do what she wanted to do, instead of doing what her mother wanted.

Sydelle Pulaski had been a mistake, but she had added a twist to the game by taking the will down in shorthand. He had never intended for anyone to see a copy of the will. In fact, he had been forced to steal her notebook, only to discover that he couldn’t make heads or tails out of it. He had left it in Shin Hoo’s to create confusion – a ploy which he thought had been rather successful.

The two women had made a better pair than he planned because despite their very different appearances, they had the same problem. 

No one really saw them, saw who they really were.

No one saw that despite her golden beauty, Angela was miserable. Maybe people saw that her mother dictated her life, just as Crow had done to Violet, but they saw a girl who went along with everything, a girl who always smiled.

No one really saw Sydelle Pulaski either – they might notice her, but she didn’t make any sort of impact on them. She was the type of woman who just got overlooked.

They had seen each other, however. More importantly, they had helped each other.

“I had my reasons,” Sandy said as he realized he’d been quiet for too long, that Turtle was giving him a puzzled look. “It worked out rather well, I think.”

“Then Denton Deere and Chris Theodorakis were the leftover pair,” Turtle said. “That’s really worked out for Chris.”

It had worked out for Denton Deere as well, Sandy thought, although the jilted young doctor probably didn’t see it that way. He’d learned a lesson about treating people as people, not diseases. More importantly, he had been saved from a marriage that would have eventually have made him miserable.

“I just wonder how it would have worked if you had put me and Angela together,” Turtle said after a long moment.

He shook his head. “Not as well as it worked out my way.” Perhaps Turtle would still have won the game, but he did not think that the other things would have followed. 

Maybe Sydelle Pulaski hadn’t been such an error after all.

***

Saturdays were her usual shopping date with Sydelle, but today they had to change it up a little. Angela enjoyed having lunch and window shopping with her former partner, even if they rarely bought much of anything. It was simply good to have a space where she could relax, and Sydelle was the perfect partner for that. By the time they’d eaten lunch, they could cover all the gossip and events of the week – Angela found Sydelle’s office stories endlessly fascinating, while Sydelle enjoyed hearing about the college life she had never been able to experience. Angela felt bad that her stories weren’t a little more interesting, but she lived at home to save money and had strenuously avoided anything related to Greek life, much to her mother’s dismay. Instead, she shared anecdotes about her classmates and professors until Sydelle felt she knew some of them. 

Angela had been a little intimidated by the idea of going back to college, but had found it was easier than she had imagined. It was hard to describe how much easier it was to be busy, to have a life that consisted of classes, studying, working and sleeping, than it had been to live the life her mother dictated. It was refreshing to spend her days where it was her brain and not her looks that were important. Her uniform of jeans and oversized sweater or sweatshirt, her long blonde hair tied back in a knot, made Angela happy – especially since it drove her mother crazy. Grace had tried to talk her into cutting her hair short, “so it would take less time”, but Angela refused. She didn’t need to defy her parents just for defiance’s sake, but she was not going to blindly follow her mother’s wishes either.

She owed so much of that to Sydelle. When they had been paired together in the game, Angela had felt like Sydelle was the strangest person she’d ever met, with her weird limp and even weirder crutches, her ever-present notepad. Her mother had thought Sydelle was a freak, and Angela had been afraid to make the wrong move, but she had learned that they had all been underestimating the secretary. They had been so sure that they had found the answer – Otis Amber. Now, of course, Angela was glad that they had been wrong. Crow and Otis ran their soup kitchen and did so much good for people that no one else cared about. 

They might not have won the money, but Angela knew she had gained something more important. 

She’d found a best friend. 

Today, instead of shopping, they were spending the day at the beauty salon. They had a party to go to. Sydelle had given up painting crutches, and settled for painting her nails to match her outfit. Angela didn’t go quite that far, although she admired Sydelle’s fuchsia and black polka dot pedicure, with the same fuchsia on her nails. They went nicely with the black dress and cropped fuchsia cardigan Sydelle planned to wear. Even better, they had found matching pairs of black peep-toe slingbacks at a deep discount. Angela had gone for a dark red on her own toes, rather than her usual boring pale pink, although she kept her simple French manicure. Fancy nails simply weren’t practical for every day.

She found she was actually looking forward to the party tonight, knowing it had actually been planned with her and Turtle in mind. It was a refreshing change from the pre-Westing Game days, when all of Grace Wexler’s events had revolved around her own desires. They had invited a mix of their friends, and Angela couldn’t wait to see how everyone got along.

*** 

Perhaps Sandy didn’t think she and Angela would have made a good pair, Turtle thought as she rode her bike home, but at least they were friends now. Angela was happy with what she was doing, instead of trying to set off fireworks because she couldn’t say how unhappy she was. They never spoke about the fact that Turtle had taken the blame for those incidents. It had been Turtle’s choice to protect her sister – and their mother, since the discovery that Angela was the bomber would have sent her over the edge. Turtle thought it was simply the way that sisters should be.

A lot of things had changed for the better. 

Her wardrobe had definitely improved, Turtle thought as she looked in the mirror. Her closet was still filled with Angela’s castoffs, but Baba worked her magic on them to make them fit Turtle – stripping them of ruffles and frills, tailoring them to her figure. It made a huge difference, not having to wear frilly pink party dresses that didn’t fit.

Tonight, however, she had a new outfit that she and Angela had shopped for together. The skinny black pencil skirt showed off lean legs – all that biking, Turtle thought with a smile – and the soft turquoise blouse draped over her in a way that Turtle liked. Angela had let her borrow a pair of silver earrings, although Turtle had turned down the offer of borrowing shoes. 

Sandy had also hinted at a surprise he was working on for her. She was trying not to think about it too much, trying not to get her hopes up. She had convinced Angela to take some time off this summer and relax, after they had worked for three years straight. Turtle had no idea what they were going to do with their free time, but she wasn’t worrying about it tonight.

Tonight was for celebrating.

She had to hand it to their mother, Turtle thought later that evening. Whatever flaws Grace Wexler had, she did know how to throw a party. Hoo’s on First was lit up, stuffed full of people and excellent Chinese food. 

Some of their fellow “heirs” were at the party as well – Turtle had hoped that Doug and Theo would be there, but neither of them had put in an appearance. Crow and Otis had come, with Otis being on his best behavior. Judge Ford had come as well, with an envelope for each of them to open later. She had given Turtle some advice on schools, along with an offer of an internship opportunity once she had some college under her belt. 

Turtle had achieved her goal of graduating from high school early, with excellent grades and her pick of scholarships. Angela had finished her first year of medical school, and was trying to decide if she could afford to transfer to a better one. Grace had taken to boasting about her brilliant daughters – both of them.

It was a good night.

*** 

Angela read the letter twice, then went to find her sister. Turtle was down in the Theodorakis coffee shop, which had recently upgraded its menu to feature more pastries and slightly foo-foo coffee, reading something that looked suspiciously like a textbook.

“What do you know about this?” Angela asked, waving the letter in front of Turtle. 

Turtle forced herself to read the letter slowly, even though she knew what it said. After all, she had one of her own. It was Sandy’s surprise, one that had almost made her cry. Of course, it had come from money she had made on stocks for him, but it was still incredible. It meant that she and Angela would be able to chase their dreams and not worry about the money.

“You are the winner of a full ride scholarship, courtesy of the Julian R. Eastman Foundation for Women Scholars,” Angela said. “Tuition, room and board, and some sort of stipend.”

“I have a similar letter,” Turtle said cheerfully. “Pretty cool, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t apply for this,” Angela said.

“You must have,” Turtle said, wondering if maybe Sandy had overplayed his hand a little. The foundation was very new. In fact, she and Angela were currently the only recipients, although Sandy had told her to keep her eyes open. “You applied for a bunch.”

“I think you must have applied for it,” Angela said slowly.

It wasn’t the truth, but it would do for now, Turtle decided. “You found me out. I applied for both of us. Does it really matter? It’s an incredible opportunity. You can go wherever you want now, and not be stuck in Milwaukee.” She was already looking at the Ivy League colleges herself, now that she wasn’t worried about how her parents were going to pay for it. 

“I could,” Angela said slowly, then smiled brightly. “So where do we want to go?”

Turtle grinned back. She liked the idea of heading into the future with Angela.

Now to see where it took them.

**Author's Note:**

> So I hope you enjoy this! I enjoyed thinking about how things might be in the middle of the time we don't see.
> 
> Also Sydelle almost ended up wearing another color because "fuchsia" is the worst word for me to spell!


End file.
